Amazon is making huge strides with Echo, its voice-activated speaker. Sonos, the popular Santa Barbara, Calif.-based maker of wireless speakers, is having to adapt to this world.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sonos CEO and cofounder John MacFarlane announced in a blog post that the company was laying off some employees and investing more in voice and paid streaming music services. Pete Pedersen, global head of public relations at Sonos, declined to specify the exact number of employees the company is laying off.

Released in late 2014, Amazon Echo is a well-received gadget that's become especially popular as a music player. Rather than having to navigate an app like with Sonos speakers, Echo users can simply tell the Echo to play specific songs or playlists. And outside of playing music, the device has become an increasingly popular means of controlling the growing array of smart home gadgets.

Amazon is building off the product's success. Last week, Amazon announced two new hardware products: the Echo Dot and the Amazon Tap. The Dot is a shorter version of the original Amazon Echo, while the Tap is a portable version.

"We’re fans of what Amazon has done with Alexa and the Echo product line," MacFarlane wrote in the blog post. "Voice recognition isn’t new; today it’s nearly ubiquitous with Siri, OK
Google, and Cortana. But the Echo found a sweet spot in the home and will impact how we navigate music, weather, and many, many other things as developers bring new ideas and more content to the Alexa platform."

"Alexa/Echo is the first product to really showcase the power of voice control in the home," MacFarlane continued. "Its popularity with consumers will accelerate innovation across the entire industry. What is novel today will become standard tomorrow. Here again, Sonos is taking the long view in how best to bring voice-enabled music experiences into the home. Voice is a big change for us, so we’ll invest what’s required to bring it to market in a wonderful way."

While MacFarlane doesn't hint at any future direction that voice has in Sonos products, the company's new Play:5 speaker contains two microphones in it (and they're currently not in use). It's easy to imagine how Sonos could switch them on and add voice features.

But while Sonos is facing a major challenger like Amazon, it still has plenty of opportunities ahead of it. As streaming music takes off, Sonos has one of the best wireless speakers in the business that integrates with all these streaming music services. The company currently has the first and only third-party hardware integration with Apple Music. Sonos doesn't want to give up on this leading position, so it will continue to invest in that area.

"Now that music fans can finally play anything anywhere, we’re going to focus on building incredibly rich experiences that were all but unimaginable when we started the company, and will be at the vanguard of what it means to listen to music at home," MacFarlane wrote. "This is a significant long-term development effort against which we’re committing significant resources."

For the past 14 years, Sonos has been growing slowly but steadily. Last year, it said it was on track to reach a billion in revenue for 2015 and that it's been profitable for a few years. The company has raised a total of $323.95 million, with the last three rounds coming from the secondary market to help early investors and employees cash out. MacFarlane has expressed to me his disinterest in taking his company public anytime soon.

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I'm a San Francisco-based staff writer at Forbes. I cover chips and AI. Email me story tips or comments at atilley@forbes.com. Follow me on Twitter @aatilley. Click here for details on how to send me information anonymously....